I've been playing this game since it came out, bought an entirely new computer just to play it, and have been wasting away for the past months because of it. There are, however, a lot of problems in the game.
The GOOD. When Total War does something good, it REALLY does it well:
1.) The graphics are very, very good. My new gaming rig is pretty powerful, but it's unable to hit the maximum settings. The shadows are beautiful, the animations are very realistic, the environments are lush and colorful, the much touted sea battles are a sight to watch, individual soldiers have unique movements, and (classic total war) there are thousands of them on screen at a time.
2.) Everything "feels" authentic. You really get the feeling that you're in the 17th century. Everything has been meticulously detailed. Government types, civil war, revolutions, blockades, pirating trade routes, technological advances in weapons, philosophy, and industrial machinery, etc. There are so many things that you can do that you could really imagine yourself as living back then, most impressive being that your armies really do show upgrades in their way of combat. With technological advances and new tactical training, you'll see your line infantry behaving differently, firing more consistently, reloading faster, etc.
3.) There's a whole lot of content available. The replay value on this game is even more than the ridiculous amount of value you'll find in the previous total war installments. With naval battles in place, which are absolutely spectacular, your war time is practically doubled. The new system of towns and agents really do make the game much sleeker and easier to use (you no longer have to micromanage them with a headache), and everything else feels streamlined, such that even though the game has become more complex, it isn't as complicated.
4.) It sounds beautiful. If you have a 5.1 or 7.1 speaker setup (I bought a 5.1 just for this game), you'll really feel you've justified your purchase with this game. Bullets whizz by your ear, cannonballs explode in the distance, dying men yell from all around you, cavalry hooves crash behind you, etc. can all be heard realistically, and being in battle never sounded so authentic.
5.) The action is fast and furious. As in classic total war games, the battles are really intense and you'll find yourself in an adrenaline pumping situation with every fight. The sea battles may be a little slow, but with a lot of ships in the same sea, it quickly becomes chaos. Great chaos, though, for the fast micromanager.
6.) The AI in the battle maps is very impressive. Opposing armies (and especially navies) are absolutely ruthless in their pursuit of victory. In the highest difficulty levels, only the most cunning generals can escape against the onslaught of the enemy. Sometimes you'll find that the AI moves in so fast that you'll only find out that you've been flanked or attacked from the rear when your armies are already routing. The sea battles are particularly difficult. Fighting against pirates will almost make you scream in madness, as their ships just SEEM a little faster, SEEM to carry more firepower, and SEEM to be more maneuverable. These battles, however, bring out the general or admiral in you. You really WANT to win because the AI is so good. And when you do achieve victory in a particularly tough battle, you'll find yourself actually clapping and congratulating.. er, yourself.
The BAD. Thankfully, when Total War does something bad, they can be remedied with time:
1.) The battle AI is great, but the campaign AI is terrible. Your rival nations don't react to your movements the way they should be. I always play Total War in the highest difficulty settings, and in Medieval and Rome, I felt that the AI was politically ruthless. In Empire, though, I can get away with a whole lot of stuff that I should normally be punished for. For example, playing as England, I can pretty much leave my shores completely undefended and France wouldn't even try to send a ship or two loaded with soldiers to attack me, even though I'm invading their homeland. I can also blockade trade routes at will without any kind of response from my enemies. Little quirks like that, though, can be remedied with a patch or two.
2.) BUGS. The game frequently crashes when you click certain things, experiences minutes of screen freeze at times, and shadow pop in is very common (shadows come out of things open air). There are other little things as well, like an assassin that I send into an enemy town will keep exiting that town over and over again on the same turn. Hopefully, Creative Assembly can fix this nonsense soon.
3.) Annoying installation. You can't find a harder game to install than Empire. This is a Steam only game, so even though you buy the disc, you're still dependent on Steam. Basically, you can't install the game without an internet connection, and you can't share the game with anyone. While this might be common in today's PC gaming industry, I expected that I could play with my brother without having to buy another disc.
4.) Some things are underutilized. As mentioned, there are dozens and dozens of things you can do in this game. Unfortunately, some things just aren't as useful as they should be because of the terrible campaign AI. For example, while assassination, sabotage, armies ransacking surrounding villages, and naval blockades could, in theory, be devastating to the enemy, they don't seem to affect your campaign all that much here. Your enemy will hardly ever try any of these things, and even if they do, you don't really feel the impact. The reason is also because, as mentioned, things are much more streamlined now. You can recruit generals and admirals at will, so losing one to an assassin is just a very minor setback. You can easily replace parliament members without that much of a negative impact on public opinion. Repairs can be made cheaply and easily to surrounding buildings. Overall, the same things that make the game groundbreaking make some things in the game useless.
5.) Balance issues. It feels like sometimes, your general dies far too quickly, even though his bodyguard is supposed to be the best batch of troops around. You can literally force waves of troops to retreat using just one slow firing piece of artillery (I've won and lost battles with just one cannon against larger groups). Melee warriors (Native Americans, Pirates, Indians) can sometimes overwhelm your fire lines unjustly, as we all know that it was these lines of guns that enabled the European nations to pretty much conquer the world in the 17th century. I'm no expert at warfare in this era, but I can spot these little things as rather strange easily.
6.) Time in between turns is still too long. total war has always had long load times in between turns, but I would expect that it would get shorter at least with this new installment.
Overall scores:
Unpatched (right now): 8.5/10
Patched (expected in the future): 9.8/10
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